More intensive care patients expected: hard Christmas, even harder January

Tuesday 22nd December 2020

More intensive care patients expected
Hard Christmas, even harder January

More and more Covid-19 patients are being treated in intensive care units. And experts expect an increase by mid-January. However, strategic relocations are designed to prevent the worst and thereby avoid triage situations.

The German intensive care physicians expect a further increase in Covid 19 patients in intensive care units in the coming weeks. "We expect the peak in the next two to three weeks," said Christian Karagiannidis from the Cologne clinics. He reckons with "around 6000" simultaneous intensive care patients in January. There is increasing concern that it will be really tight – not only in Saxony, but also in other regions.

According to the daily register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), 5216 Covid-19 patients were treated in intensive care units on Tuesday. "In addition to the high number of patients, we are confronted with the fact that we have fewer staff available," Karagiannidis said. It is therefore important to vaccinate the staff in intensive care units as soon as possible.

Return to yourself

Steffen Weber-Carstens from the Berlin Charité emphasized that there is currently no triage in clinics. Triage means that when resources are scarce, doctors have to decide who to help first. "We don't currently have a triage situation in Saxony either," he said. However, 40 Covid patients have already been relocated nationwide, it said. Such strategic relocations to less polluted regions are currently an important point to prevent triage situations. Karagiannidis emphasized that every patient would get a bed, "but not necessarily in the hospital of their choice".

Divi President Uwe Janssens appealed to politicians to create a legal basis for triage in order to give doctors legal security. "Due to the corona pandemic, a magnifying glass has been aimed at this situation." The situation in the intensive care units is also difficult because Covid 19 patients stay there for a very long time. With invasive ventilation, the average length of stay is 18 days, said Stefan Kluge from the Hamburg University Medical Center Eppendorf (UKE).

"It will be a very hard Christmas, also for the nursing staff," said Divi President Janssens. He had previously appealed to citizens to refrain from meeting in a larger circle at Christmas. "We would like people to think back to themselves this year and celebrate a very quiet Christmas with the very, very tightest family circle."